Angie's adventures through the world of entrepreneurship, life after grad school, and Memphis.

Friday, March 31, 2006

Malibu Sushi

Last night did indeed turn out to be a good story... After first going to Howdy's in Malibu and finding it closed, I was forced to eat at someplace else... someplace new.

And, if you've ever ended up trying to randomly find a place to eat in Malibu, you know that it can be tricky. Malibu is actually not as big as I pictured it before moving to California. The population there is something like 13,000 and most of the residents only live there part time (think big vacation homes). As you can imagine, the first challenge is just finding a place, any place. There's not a ton going on in Malibu.

Then the next challenge usually begins with the question, "Am I dressed appropriately?" You can easily go into a tiny place in Malibu and just after you valet park your car (against your will usually), you find out that the place only accepts reservations and / or clearly has a certain dress code.

The good news is - I found a great new place to eat sushi in Malibu. Its a tiny little place called Thai Dishes and Sushi (Thai Dishes itself is a small LA chain, but they don't usually serve sushi). It was a tiny place that has clearly been other types of fare over the years. They had a fire that was burning atop sand in a fireplace... little orchids... the whole thing was very comfy and casual. The one humorous part to me was the waiter. He was SO nice and SO attentive. At one point, he even unwrapped our disposable chopsticks and allowed us to each take them out of the package ourselves.

The place was great and I plan to go back soon. My one question is-- if they're going for that upscale feeling, why not invest in some real chopsticks? I mean, it sort of feels like someone at McDonald's unwrapping your Big Mac for you.